


Capitalism is immoral

by Ever-so-reylo (Ever_So_Reylo)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Politics, Ben's POV, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Falling In Love, Love at First Sight, Mutual Pining, Opposites Attract, Pining, Political Alliances, Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-06 22:36:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18226313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ever_So_Reylo/pseuds/Ever-so-reylo
Summary: When Rey Johnson is elected Representative for New York's 29th congressional district, she is twenty-five years, six months, and four days old. The youngest person to ever serve in the United States Congress.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BazineApologist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BazineApologist/gifts).



> This is my entry for the Reylo Gifts Project, inspired by [BazineApologist](https://twitter.com/bazineapologist)'s stunning art 💖I loooove your work, and I hope you'll like this (sort of messy and weird) ficlet.  
> Thanks to crossingwinter for the beta, to usethehorseluke for answering all my questions about politics, and to the mods of the Reylo Gifts Project for putting all of this together!  
> I really don't know enough about politics to be writing a fic that is set in Congress, so... forgive me? 😚

 

When Rey Johnson is elected Representative for New York's 29th congressional district, she is twenty-five years, six months, and four days old. The youngest person to ever serve in the United States Congress.

“ReyJay. That’s how people call her.”

Ben blinks. And frowns. “…ReyJay?”

“Yeah.” Baz waves her hand. “Because of her Twitter handle.” 

Ben frowns harder, and Baz must interpret it as meaning that he doesn’t know what Twitter is—only partially true—because she opens her laptop and pulls up first her feed, and then someone’s profile. 

It reads: 

> **_@reyjay_**
> 
> _D candidate for the US House of Representatives, NY-29._

“Right. So she hasn’t updated the bio yet. But this is her.”

Baz’s pink nail points to the small picture of a scowling girl, wrapped in a peace flag and sporting a ridiculous hairdo. She is holding a sign that says: _“Capitalism is immoral.”_ It takes several seconds of staring—and just as much squinting—before Ben realizes that her shirt is saying something about refugees.

She has thousands—no, _millions_ of followers.

Ben massages his temple, and when he speaks his voice is unusually soft. 

“Fuck.” 

 

…

 

She has a British accent. And double citizenship. 

And a stubborn streak that’s way too long, and borderline extreme politics that are going to make everyone’s life impossible, and a huge social media following, and Ben mother’s and uncle’s public endorsement, _damn_ his _fucking_ family, and a knowledge of grassroots political campaigns that would have Saul Alinsky grinning in his grave, and Ben recently found her Instagram and she—

Beautiful. She is beautiful. 

“Fuck.”

 

…

 

They are not members of the same political party (of course), and Ben’s most definitely not one for socializing in his leisure time, which means that it takes them days to meet in person, even after she’s sworn in.  

She is shorter than he thought she’d be—even after studying a disturbing amount of her online pictures, for a disturbing amount of time; her hair is not styled in those three buns anymore; and that’s before getting to her clothes—just dress code compliant enough to not get her in trouble, but somehow also managing to looks so _abundantly_ twenty-five years old—and the heels and the briefcase and all those piercings in her ears and—all the rest, really.  

But she is as beautiful as he expected. And it’s still a punch to his stomach.

“You have met Ben Solo, right?” The minority leader, Maz Kanata, asks it to Congresswoman Johnson when they run into each other just out of a meeting of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. “Second youngest kid here. Still, almost a decade older than you, though.” 

She simply shakes her head, and extends her hand.  

Though she must have miscalculated. Because in the process she drops the manila folder she’s holding, and several sheets of paper scatter between their feet. Ben drops automatically to his knees to pick them up.

“I’m so sorry. I thought I was holding on to it and—”

When he stands and hands it all back, his fingertips brush against hers. 

Their eyes hold for a fraction of a second, and then they both look away.

 

…

 

He doesn’t look at her during the committee meeting.

For the most part.

 

…

 

He also attempts not to look at her during the Stratford hearing, at the reception following the State of the Union, or during the special session on the fiscal cliff. 

With mixed results. 

When her questioning about campaign finance laws goes viral and causes a public outcry that is probably going bite Ben’s party in the ass for the next decade, he just sighs. When she makes the news for livestreaming a Q & A with her constituents while preparing a sweet potato casserole, he changes the channel from CNN to ESPN. When his colleagues complain about her because according to Politico she ‘owned’ them on Twitter, he listens, and nods when the conversation demands it.  

And sometimes, just sometimes, he thinks: 

_Fuck._

 

…

 

In approximately half a decade in the House, Ben has met maybe thirty people in the congressional gym, and three quarters of them seemed exclusively interested in the sauna. He figures that his colleagues simply don’t work out; and if they do, it’s not at five thirty am. Or maybe they use the treadmills and the ellipticals and those stupid stair climbers, and it’s just the swimming pool that they ignore. 

That’s why it startles him, when he pushes himself out of the water and finds her there, standing a few feet from the edge of the pool, looking down at him in a one piece and an NYU swimming cap. 

And nothing else.  

It feels like it takes Ben minutes to straighten up. Barefoot like that she’s even smaller than he remembered, and he could—he could groan. He could—he really _could_ —

Though he doesn’t. He just stands there, dripping, heart beating stupidly fast.

Probably from swimming laps. Surely. 

“Congresswoman.” He shakes the water from his shoulders and takes off his goggles. And then he nods. “Good morning.”

“Congressman Solo.”

She did not blush once three days ago, as she delivered a speech on charter schools funding and expenses to the House. Ben wasn’t present but he knows, because he watched the C-Span coverage very carefully. Twice. Know your enemies, and all that. She did not blush when she headed a fundraising rally for her party’s senatorial candidate in Iowa, and she did not blush when she spoke at that protest site near Wall Street. She did not blush then—he hasn’t seen her blush, ever—which means that he must be seeing things. 

Surely she can’t be blushing now, either.

 

…

 

She swims on Mondays, Wednesday, Fridays, and sometimes on Saturdays, too, starting at six thirty am. Ben swims… pretty much every day, and he gets out of the water at six twenty-seven. On the dot.

By the second week, she’s not blushing anymore.

By the third, they are smiling at each other.

The fourth, she begins to wear a two piece swimsuit.

Ben’s brain may or may not leak out of skull, into a puddle of liquefied neurons and glial cells and chlorine water.

 

…

 

He is returning from a classified State Department briefing on the Syria situation, and he stops to hold the door open for someone’s staffer who looks like she just hit puberty—God, kids here are getting younger and younger, practically larval, and Ben feels so fucking _old_ —when he looks up from his phone and sees that—

“Oh.”

The staffer passes through. Rey Johnson, on the other hand, presses her lips together and half-smiles at him. “Thank you.”

Ben’s mouth is dry, apparently. Dry enough that he has to swallow before he can rasp out: “You’re welcome.” 

The fact that he was able to successfully run for public office but cannot seem to put more than two stunted words together when Rey Johnson is in a three-mile radius—it's frankly astounding. 

A statistical paradox. 

Her chief of staff, a young man with dark hair and suspicious, hostile eyes, seems to press a little closer to her. Congresswoman Johnson ignores him, and looks up at Ben. “Hi.”

He bites the inside of his mouth, and tries not to stare. With little success, or none at all. “Hello.” The softness of his voice surprises him a little—and Ben has to hear his own damned voice _all_ day, _every_ day. Then again, when he talks with his colleagues, or his staff, or the President, or his dog walker—when he talks with anyone _else_ , he never feels like _this_. So. 

“How are you, Congressman?”

He just nods. “Fine. You?” And then, added in a stumbling rush, because—he is not awkward as fuck, not _at all_ : “Ben. You can call me Ben.”

“Oh.” Is she flushing? Again? “Good. Great. Ben.” She nods. “Fantastic.” A pause. “Just moved offices. I’m here in Longworth, now. Something about construction going on in Rayburn House.”

“Ah.” Here in Longworth. Her office—it’s here in Longworth, now. Good to know. No big deal. Just possibly life altering. “So am I.”

“Right. Yeah, I… I think I knew that.” She scratches the back of her neck. “Anything I should know? Water fountains to avoid? Toilets that get clogged a lot? People stealing lunches from the break room?”

Ben smiles. “No. I don’t think so. I mean, we do have those mutant cockroaches.”

She laughs, rich and raspy. Beside her, her chief of staff clears his throat. Loudly.  “Rey, we need to meet with the Medical Technology Caucus in fifteen minutes.”

“Right.” She holds Ben’s eyes for a fraction of a second, and then looks away. It’s clearly a dismissal, and Ben nods and makes to head back to his office. Until: “The room is just behind the corner—can you go set up the conference call, Finn? I’ll be right behind you.”

It’s obvious that Finn _could_. He is _capable_ of it. But it’s equally obvious, from his scowl and his hesitation and the hostile glance he gives Ben, that he doesn’t _want_ to. “You should review the—”

“Please.”

A slow, defeated sigh, and they are alone. In Longworth, in the middle of an unusually deserted hallway. And the silence between them—it’s spreading a little too fast.

“How have your first few months been?” Ben blurts out. He truly is an impeccable conversationalist, isn’t he. Though at least she doesn’t seem to mind too much.

“Fine. Good. Busy. Working ninety hours a week. Am I doing it right?”

He huffs out a laugh. “I don’t know. Are you taking eight-minute power naps under your desk between meetings with the Ohio Corn and Wheat Growers Association and fundraising bashes?”

“You mean, I shouldn’t nap _on_ my desk?”

He clucks his tongue. “Rookie mistake.”

She smiles. And then she looks away. And then her smiles fades, and what she says next—it doesn’t quite compute.

“I saw your football trophies. From high school.” She plays with a silver bracelet on her wrist while he tries to figure out if he heard her correctly, how she could have— “I had dinner with your parents, last weekend. The showed me your baby pictures, too.”

Oh. Oh.

Oh, _shit_.

Except that Rey’s not glaring at him, or insulting him, or saying any of the things that his mother’s protégées usually like to throw at him. She’s looking up at him with a teasing expression, a gleam in her eyes. 

“You’re hiding some serious ears, under all that hair.”

“I—” He exhales carefully. They are burning up, now, his stupid _ears_. He has to clear his throat before continuing. “Nice of you, to pretend I’m able to hide them,” he mutters, and she laughs, that soft, soothing sound that he remembers from those interviews of hers he’s been watching on YouTube, late at night. 

“Your mother misses you.”

It’s a lie, it must be. And even if it’s not—Ben doesn’t care about that. So he’s not sure why he hears himself asks, “Did she tell you that?”

“No. No, she just…” Rey shrugs. “I could tell.”

“As you are aware, I’ve made life choices that she doesn’t quite approve of.” She must know. That the Skywalkers have a long history of doing politics on one side of the aisle, and that Ben simply… does not. That he did it all _wrong_. She must know because _everyone_ knows.

“Well. Maybe you’re more than your life choices, to her,” she says softly. Meeting his eyes, and then some.

When Finn finally ducks out of the conference room to call Rey away, Ben just stares at her slim back for long moments. And then he mutters: 

“Fuck.”

 

…

 

The House Subcommittee on Environmental Affair meets about once a month, for some reason unknown to Ben—and his staff, because he has asked them multiple times—always at approximately one pm, exactly after lunch.

It never quite reaches unbearable levels, but it’s earth-shatteringly dull. Irrelevant. It’s not that Ben doesn’t believe global climate change is a real issue, or that environmental protection is crucial to the survival of the planet, or that those ugly windmills that look like alien lighthouses are likely a better alternative to burning gasoline. It’s just that—for him, it’s hard to care. It has been, for a while. And it’s made even harder by the fact that the electorate is mostly stupid, and doesn’t seem to give a shit about anything. 

If they did, they surely wouldn’t have elected Snoke. 

“… we need a comprehensive solution to climate change. Supporting policies that reduce pollution, renewable energy tax credits, fuel economy standards—all this stuff is _good_ , but we need a more systemic…” 

Thing is—it seems pointless, to let himself care about something that is so far beyond his control. Counterproductive, for sure. Better just take it for a fact, and focus on other things.

“… we can put together a large-scale program of investments in research, clean-energy jobs, and infrastructure within the energy sector …”

It makes him quite anxious, just to _think_ about it. And Ben—he doesn’t like it, feeling anxious. He’s not even sure _why_ he was assigned to this committee. Probably because Snoke wanted someone he trusted to keep an ear out for anything fishy.

“… we need to send the message that this goes beyond party lines—that clean energy and sustainable infrastructure are something that are of interest to everyone… ”

Ben’s platform, the one that has gotten him elected twice now, has always focused on cutting taxes. Fiscally conservative, that’s what he is. Making money for the very same people who gave him the money to get elected. That’s what he does, what he’s _good_ at. Maybe he’s just going through the motions. But the future—his own, or the planet’s—it’s not something that has ever held much interest for him. Ben—he is mostly numb, at this point.

“… so, having a cosponsor outside of the Democratic Party when we introduce the bill would really go a long way towards raising awareness, and showing that this is a bipartisan effort. Climate change is an across-the-aisle problem—this piece of legislation would be in _everyone’s_ interest.” 

Ben is _mostly_ numb. 

That must be why it takes him by surprise, when Representative Johnson's speech ends and her voice drifts into a cricket-worthy silence, and he hears himself say, “I’ll do it.” 

At least nine pairs of eyes turn towards him; some sleepy, some blinking, some bulging, and—what the hell. 

Why not. 

“I’ll co-sponsor,” he repeats.

Congresswoman Johnson smiles.     

 

…

 

Afterwards, Hux follows him to the empty restroom.

“Listen,” he says from the urinal next to Ben’s. “I see what’s going on, here.”

Ben tries to tune him out. He’s usually quite good at that.

“She is very… _sponsorable_.”

He closes his pants, and the catch of his zipper echoes within the bathroom. He is about to turn around and wash his hands, but he halts when Hux says:

“But it doesn’t mean that you have to support something written by a twenty-year-old car mechanic and her unemployed grad school friends. I get the temptation—she’s pretty, if you like the good girl type. Those are always nice for a quick fuck—”

There’s blood on Ben’s knuckles, when he steps out of the restroom. He cleans it surreptitiously on the back of his tie, and nods at Congresswoman Pava when he passes her in the hallway.

 

…

 

Phas is slightly more civil about it, when she stops by his office.

“Is it true?”

Ben doesn’t look up from the briefing he’s reading. “What is?”  

“The Green Bill. Rey Johnson’s. Are you really cosponsoring it?”

No time like the present to make a formal announcement, then. “Yep.”

The silence stretches for long, so long that he cannot help but peak at her. She is blinking slowly. “Does the President know about this?”

No. Maybe. Who knows. Ben hasn’t talked with Snoke in days. “I’m not sure.”

“Well.” Phas shrugs. “I suppose political suicide’s a good way to go as any.” She nods. “Good luck, Ben. I hope you know what you’re doing.”

She leaves before he can admit to her that, no. He most definitely does not.

 

…

 

Their offices are a stairwell and half a hallway apart, and Longworth is nothing but conference halls and meeting rooms and private spaces. So he’s not quite sure why she asks him to meet for dinner, to talk about the project and ‘ _work some of the kinks out_.’

_‘You can pick the place_ ,’ she writes in the email.

Ben panics, and moans, and facepalms. And then chooses a restaurant in Bloomingdale, on a day when congress is not in session.

She stops five minutes into her speech on carbon capture for fossil plants and hydropower to glare at the menu.

“Wait. Why are all the dishes veggie based?”

Ben shifts in his chair. “It’s a vegan restaurant.”

“What?” She lifts her glare up to him. “Why?”

“Um.” His entire life, he has been trained on how not to fidget while under pressure—first by Leia, then by Skywalker, and some even by Snoke. Therefore he should be better at it than _this_ , right _now_. “I thought you’d be a… vegetarian. Or something,” he adds weakly.

The glare melts into a laughs. “Oh my god. No. Not at all.” She shakes her head. “This is the worst date I’ve ever been on,” she says, oddly sweet.

Ben’s heart misses so many beats, he must be rapidly approaching cardiovascular death by now.

“I…” _Did you say 'date'? Is this a date? I don’t—I’ve never really—I have no idea how to—maybe things have changed since I was young and now the word date means something totally different but—I can’t. Fuck. Just: fuck._ “It seemed like it would make sense. All considered.”

“Nope.” She shrugs. “I mean, I try to minimize my carbon footprint and support sustainable production systems. But I also make a mean meatloaf.”

Oh. “Really?”

She beams. “Yep. Maybe I could make it for you?”

At the table next to theirs, someone drops a piece of silverware; it hits the floor with a metallic sound.

“Maybe.”

 

…

 

The House is Red. And the Senate is Blue. Which means that for the bill to move forward with a simple majority, not only do all the Dems have to vote in favor, but a couple dozen Republicans must do the same. 

Ben sits at his desk, scratches his head, and begins to gathers all the strings he can pull. 

Two hours later, when his phone vibrates with a call from the President, he simply flips it around. 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seems like a good time to admit that I'm not really positive I understand what a bill even is 😊💕

 

When Ben enters the closed-door meeting of the Subcommittee on Investor Protection, Entrepreneurship and Capital Markets, he is over thirty minutes late because of a fundraising event at the Columbia Country Club that run way too long, and Congressman Dameron (D-Cali) and Congresswoman Holdo (D-Maine), are having a shouting match about Freddie Mac. 

He develops an instant, pounding headache.

Baz quickly motions Ben to his assigned seat, hands him a stack of notes, and whisper what appears to be a vastly sanitized version of the meeting so far; Ben listens intently—up until the moment he realizes who is sitting _there_ , right beside him.

He hasn’t seen her since last week. When the Green Bill had passed the House. Then Congress had gone out of session and Ben was back in his district, a blurry of town halls and meetings with constituents and attending to casework and... 

Checking Twitter. A couple of times a day, or ten.

So they haven’t really talked since the vote—if one doesn’t count a slightly-too-long handshake on the House floor that thankfully wasn’t picked up by the C-SPAN Live Stream. 

It’s mostly Ben’s fault. Once he was touching her, he hadn’t quite been able to let go.

She smiles at him when he sits, and murmurs, “Hey, you.”

Ben just nods somberly, and then glares at Hux when he catches him staring at them from across the table. Hux averts his eyes, and caresses his jaw, almost reflexively.

Ben smiles, showing just a hint of teeth.  

Congresswoman Pava is going on and on about federal subsidies when Rey slides a piece of paper in his field of view. It’s a chart of a three-year plan for the Federal Home Loan Bank System—with something scrawled on the left margin. It takes him a minute to decipher it, because it’s—truly the poorest handwriting Ben has ever seen. It can’t possibly be normal. Maybe she has dysgraphia?

_What about tonight?_

Ben looks up at her, puzzled. Rey reaches for her pen, and adds on the bottom margin: 

_That meatloaf I promised. My place?_

Ben’s head explodes. 

And then—then the pieces must find their way back to him, glued together by hormones and misplaced bodily fluids, because he manages to _nod_.

Rey presses her knee against his, and leaves it there for a long time, while she explains to Dameron the importance of transferring most of the credit risk of multifamily mortgage guarantees to private capital markets.

 

…

 

He’s not sure what he expected they’d talk about; or what he expected her place to look like. Definitely not the foster mother who tended to drink a little too much but passed on a fantastic meatloaf recipe; and definitely not like a winter garden of sorts, flowers and green-leafed plants crowding every corner of the cramped apartment.

She is so graceful and sure-footed around the small kitchen, it’s evident how often she cooks.

“You’re not going to livestream this one?” Ben teases, and Rey’s laugh is even warmer than usual.

“We can livestream what happens later, if you want.”

He doesn't dare to ask what that is, but his cock gets painfully hard against the zipper of his jeans.

When the sauce is almost ready, Rey stops talking about how unfair it is that she lost class president to Jennifer Heckers in her Junior year of high school, and holds a spoon across the narrow kitchen island, to Ben’s lips.

“How’s the salt? Enough?”

It takes Ben a few minutes to realize that she means for him to taste it. He leans forward, and—it’s perfect. Tangy, and sweet, and a little spicy. Splendid.

“Fine. Good.”

“Not too bland?”

“I…” He licks his lips. “I don’t think so. But I don’t know.” _I usually have steamed tofu and mushrooms for dinner, when I’m at home. It’s the only thing I know how to prepare. I am not sure how_ salt _works. I am not sure how_ any _of this works._

“Hang on. Lemme see.” He expects her to dip the spoon in the sauce pot and try it herself. Instead she sets it on the counter and pushes up on her toes, licking Ben’s lower lip and then sucking it lightly between her teeth.

His heart stops. And then, after long seconds, it explodes in his chest. Just as Rey slides back on her heels and smiles up at him.

“Just perfect.”

 

…

 

When she first puts her hand on him, after he has licked her raw and soft and pink, it comes away wet. She smiles, bites into her lower lip, and then brings her fingers up to her face to study his come, like it’s something interesting and amusing and infinitely fascinating.

“So. You _do_ like me.”

He closes his eyes, because this is mortifying. And because otherwise he’ll come again.

It doesn’t much help. He can still see her, printed behind his eyelids, head thrown back and cunt open, ripe like a lotus flower under his tongue.

“Did you doubt that?” The words stick to his throat; can barely make their way out. 

She will dry him of every drop of semen and sweat and blood. She will leave him for dead, and he will thank her and beg for more. 

“All the time.” She licks her index finger, and the rest of his come she wipes gently across the lovely skin of her stomach. 

He wants to lick her hip bones, and then fuck her tits and maybe her ass, and then watch her sleep and rest as he thinks of new ways to ruin her for anyone else that might come after him. He just wants to _keep_ _her_ , keep her for himself.  

“You were always scowling.” She is bending forward now, a sweet kiss pressed into his neck. Her cunt is spread and wet on his abs, and it’s all he can do to not just push her down onto himself. “And your Chief of staff is so beautiful, and you’re way too tall and handsome for someone like me, and you _never, ever_ looked at me, not even when I was wearing nothing but my nicest swimsuits—”

He runs a hand through her hair to angle her head up. And he really, really wants to kiss her, to press her into the mattress and fool around and fuck her like they are sixteen and they don’t owe anything to anyone, but it feels like first he should probably admit that:

“I looked.”

Rey grins like he just gave her a present and then—it doesn’t take a lot. She’s pliable and sinuous and very, _very_ determined, and Ben’s breath hisses between his teeth when her cunt parts around the head of his cock.

She balances her hands on his chest and puffs out a laugh. “I was hoping you would.”

Her tits are a thing of beauty. Golden and flushed and dusted with freckles and larger than he’d thought—and he’d _thought_. A lot.

“I couldn’t help myself.” His voice sounds choked, and he’s not even halfway inside. Rey’s eyes are hazy, and he can see it, the way she is trying to get her body to relax around him, trying not to clench. “There was this moment, just before you were about to dive. I could see your ass in the mirror.” His hand slides down, his thumb swiping first on her clit and then lower, where she is stretched so tightly around him. 

It feels _too_ tight. It feels like he might break her. It feels _magnificent_. 

Rey arches up, and Ben gains about half an inch. This must be what if feels like, when men finally win decade-long wars.

“And then I’d be alone in the shower room. For minutes. And Rey—I couldn’t help myself.”   

No condom, and they haven’t even discussed it. This is so irresponsible.

He wants to be irresponsible with her ten, twenty, a thousand more times.

“Is it okay, that I think of you?” 

He is inside her, almost to his balls now, slickness and warmth and blessed, delicious pressure. And Rey is shaking and moaning and biting her lip and then—then her breathing calms; becomes deeper. 

A moment of stillness.

She closes her eyes and smiles. “I told you. Just perfect.”

Ben’s hands circle her waist, and he sits up in a fluid movement. 

And then—then it all starts for real.

 

…

 

“The flag.”

Rey rolls on her side and presses a kiss into his bicep. “Mm?”

“You still have it.” Ben points to the wall behind her vanity, where the peace flag is draped carelessly. “The one from your Twitter pic.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Her smile unfurls slowly. “Have you been looking at my Twitter? You perv.”

Ben flushes. And covers his eyes with his forearm. And doesn’t budge when she laughs and tells him that she was kidding, that it’s alright, she doesn’t mind, that she totally perved— _perved?_ —over his official portrait on the House website, too. He is way too embarrassed to look at her, _ever again_ , and only opens his eyes when she leaves the room to get them something to drink.

Still giggling. 

When she comes back with two beers the peace flag is wrapped around her; not quite reaching the smooth curve of her ass, and covering very little elsewhere, too.

Ben wonders if there’s anything he wouldn’t do for her.

 

…

 

“It’s not that I don’t believe capitalism is immoral,” he tries to explain, burying his face in the pillow. He’s not used to this, having to explain himself. Not anymore. 

“Mm. Right.”

“It’s that I don’t think I am able to care.”

Rey continues to massage his shoulders, digging her thumb into a set of knots she found a few minutes earlier. “Maybe you just need to learn how to care, then.” 

He blows out a laugh. And then moans, because this feels _splendid_. “And how would that work?”

“I’m not sure.” One of Rey’s hands travels down his spine. “Maybe…” she adds pensively, when Ben is almost drifting asleep, “maybe, you just need someone to care for you, first.”

 

…

 

He fucks her once more during the night and then again in the early morning, right after waking up hard against her lower back, and a few minutes before leaving. It’s sleepy and groggy and a little too easy, slow thrusts and wet noises and lots of lazy friction that melts him from the inside and—yes, _yes_ , yes. Good.

The both come quietly, a muffled grunt and a reedy sigh meeting in the space between, and as the pleasure begins to trickle away from their bodies, that's when she tells him:

“I am so gone over you, Ben Solo.”

He is not quite sure what that even means. When he finds his voice to ask, Rey is already asleep. 

 

…

 

He sees her when he gets out of the swimming pool, on Mondays, Wednesday, Fridays, and sometimes on Saturdays, too, at six thirty AM. Business as usual—except that now, now he lets himself look. And some mornings, mornings that always turn into days that are lovelier than most, he even touches.  

Just a little. 

She makes her sweet potato casserole for him, and then pizza, from scratch, and chicken pot pie, and three different types of cookies. For the first time in years Ben is not hungry all the time. 

She pulls him into the nooks of Longworth and kisses him, which is risky and stupid and idiotic and moronic and just plain unnecessary and Ben invariably leans into her further, and kisses her deeper.

She leaves her hair straightener at his DC apartment. And then her panties. When she’s gone, back to her district for a whole week, he locks himself in the bathroom with them—and later texts her all about it, dozens of lines of lurid details. 

He follows her on Twitter, though she doesn’t follow him back. 

It’s… good. And that’s not a word Ben uses lightly.

And then, the Bill moves to the Senate.

 

…

 

Snoke is livid. Snoke is enraged. Snoke wants to kill him. 

Ben already knows that, even before nodding at the secret service agent standing by the door of the Oval Office, before knocking, before receiving his summons, before avoiding dozens of his calls. Snoke is going to threaten him and tear into him and maybe do even worst—and Ben knows it, he fully expects, he doesn’t even mind because it’s all _worth it_.

Until he spots her. Sitting rigidly in one of the guest chairs, right across from the President. She doesn’t look towards the door, doesn’t look at Ben—just keeps glaring at Snoke, as if ready to defend herself, as if anticipating that he’ll do something unspeakable.

She doesn’t even begin to know how _right_ she is.

“Ben. How gracious of you to come visit your old mentor.” He smiles in a way that Ben used to think of as wise, almost nurturing. When he was younger, and even more stupid than now. “You should sit. Here, next to your little friend.”

Rey’s fists tighten at her sides, and Ben’s heart rate picks up.

“I’d rather stand, Mister President.”

“Suit yourself.” Snoke sighs, condescending. “You know, Ben—you used to be so much more reasonable until just a few months ago. You’d keep me updated on House affairs.  You’d take care of delicate business for me. You’d answer my _calls_. _”_ The last word drips with reprimand. “When I heard you were co-sponsoring this—” he gestures derisively towards Rey “—Green Bill, my first thought was that you were doing it for _me_. That you were trying to manipulate the outcome to support  _your party_.” He laughs, and—it’s _chilling_. Ben _hates_ him. “Little did I know that you were just trying to get laid.”

Rey gasps, and stands. “Mister President, this is highly inappropriate and I will—”  

“You will do _nothing_ , child. Sit down.” He motions to her dismissively. “Ben, I trust you did get laid. Well done. Now it’s time to get back on track.” Snoke steps towards him, and Ben thinks that—Snoke looks old, and frail, and yet Ben’s always surprised at how tall he is. Being in this room, with him—it’s almost like being a child again. “I know you’ve been trying to make three senators cross the aisle to get to two thirds of the vote. This stops now, because I swear to God, if the day the Bill is on the Senate floor I get an inkling that it might pass with enough votes that I won’t be able to veto it, that will be the end of it. For you, and for _her_.” He leans closer. “Understood?”

Behind him, Rey scoff. “You cannot do this. This is highly unethical, and neither Ben not I will—”

Snoke ignores her. “ _Understood?_ ”

Ben presses his lips together, and after a long while he nods.

Once they are outside the White House, Rey grips his arm until he _has_ to turn and face her.

“You don’t mean it, do you?”

He can’t quite bear to look at her. So he stares at the forsythia shrubs that, he could have sworn, weren’t blooming even a few hours ago. It’s spring. Go figure. “Mean, what?” 

“You’re not going to do what he asked. You’re not going to give up on this just because he…”

She must read the answer in his eyes. Because she trails off, and then takes a step back, and then her eyes are liquid and disbelieving.

“Please, Ben. Please, don’t go this way.”

He can only swallow as she looks at him like _that_ , and—she shouldn’t be crying, really. Not in this place, and not at all. It should be a capital crime, to make Rey Johnson cry. 

“Ben. I thought we could…” She shakes her head.

The rest of the sentence is just heels, clicking rapidly on the paver floor.

 

…

 

“She only has five suits that fit that stupid congressional dress code,” Finn explains while glaring and Ben. “And three of them are here, in your apartment, so if you could give them to me now…”

The ‘ _Asshole_ ’ is mute, but implied.

Ben returns the suits, and even the flat iron. Though he keeps her Refugees Welcome t-shirt, tucked neatly under his pillow.

“By the way, the vote is tomorrow. In case you ever cared.” Finn leaves without waiting for a response.  

 

…

 

The following day, at two fifteen pm, the bill passes on the senate floor, four votes shy of the two-thirds cut off. 

Less than ten minutes later, hundreds of documents tying President Snoke to organized crime are published by several major newspapers. 

 

…

 

Ben turns on his back and wakes up slowly, catching the tail doppler of an ambulance passing in the streets below. The light is there, too, a faint red that brings the details of his New York apartment into relief. A stack of books. His tie, hanging from the back of a chair.

Rey, lying on her side next to him. 

He rubs the sleep from his eyes with his thumb and index finger, and then reaches out to pull her into his body. He changes his mind when his hand is about halfway between them, just as he remembers that Rey simply _cannot_ be there. 

She has never even been here.

“I’m just dreaming of you.” He lets his arm fall in the space that separates them. Better than finding cold air, where soft skin should be. “Again.”

She smiles. Painfully beautiful, this girl. _Woman_. Whatever. 

Hard to be PC, at two thirty-seven in the morning. “This is not a dream.”

“It’s not?” 

“Nope.” She reaches out to cup his cheek, and her flesh is so _warm_ against his face. Sliding to his nape. A dream, but a better dream than most. The best, so far. “You’re the one who leaked the documents, aren’t you?”

A gush of light breeze blows into the half open window, seeping between his flesh and Rey’s, and—it clicks in his head like that, that Rey is _here_ , really _here_ , in his New York City apartment where he never even brought her before, and she wasn’t here when he fell asleep which means that—

He gathers her in his arms and pushes her underneath him in one quick move, that stupid, reptilian part of his brain insisting that he must keep her here, _mine, forever. Yes. Good._

“How did you get in?”

Rey smiles and opens her legs to make room for him. Suddenly, breathing is hard work.

“I have—” she nips at his chin “—my methods.”

“Rey—”

“Mostly, I know my way around a lock.” She kisses the corner of his mouth. “And I _so_ wanted to be here. With you.”

“Rey.”

She frees her arms, and wraps them around his neck, pulling his forehead down to hers. She smells like yellow flowers and seawater.

“I’m sorry, for what I said. _So_ sorry.” 

_I am so gone over you, Ben Solo._

“You didn’t say much. I don’t think.” 

She just looks at him in silence, and he can hear her heartbeat. “I’m sorry for what I thought, then.”

Ben leans against her throat, and lets himself sink into the scent of her skin. 

 

…

 

_ From www.vox.com: _

 

**The curious case of Rey Johnson (D, NY-29) and Ben Solo (I, NY-30) following each other on Twitter, explained.**

_The two members of Congress have very different politics, but they have been following each other on the social media platform for a few weeks now. Here’s three theories on why that might be._

By Suralinda Javos

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me [on Twitter! 💕](https://twitter.com/EverSoReylo)


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